


Guéris Vite

by Arithanas



Series: The Count and his Valet [11]
Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Genre: Chronic Illness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, historical candies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-28
Updated: 2011-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 18:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4232637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/pseuds/Arithanas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1635, Blois. A sudden health crisis ruins a birthday and requires vigilant partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guéris Vite

Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks  
simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.  
 ~ _Lao Tzu_

All my life I've woken up before first light, it's nothing to what I'm not used to. Most of the nights it was enough for me to put my head on the pillow and stop thinking for the tiredness of the day makes me sleep soundly. That was my life: work and service. But there is another part of my life I cannot control as easily and sometimes it troubles my sleep.

The part of my life I decided not to share with anyone was full of concern and lust, generated by a single person who was the center of my life and around which gravitated other small loves that caused me fewer problems. Olivier de La Fère was the barometer of my life and he had been for twenty years. I could not help frowning when I saw him worried, or smile if saw him satisfied. I lost sleep last night because I could read the pain on his face when I helped him disrobe, because his eyes were closed when he asked me to leave, because I heard a hit against the wall of my bedroom every time he tossed and turned around in his old bed.

This morning in early spring, I felt tired and distraught. Knowing that _M. le Comte_ had had a bad night did that to me. His health worried me, I had been there during the nine worst years of his life and I had lost count of the empty bottles that I had picked up after he left them dry. He believed that he could hide the pain, but I could clearly see he was ill. I went downstairs thinking I would have to collect some herbs and devising how I would do for him to drink something that made him feel better.

Blaisois greeted me with the same energy and joy with which he always did when he saw me enter the kitchen, and absently I pet his head. Charlot's wife was watching the bread and barely greeted me, breakfast was her only care. One of the stable-boys put down his pot of homemade beer and muttered a greeting that I cannot quite understand because my mind was wandering about how to take care of my master.

“What?” I asked him, while I was getting rid of the boy.

“Happy St. Dismas, I said,” he repeated it with the complaisance that youth shows to older men.

I muttered a curse; if I had been more rested I would have remembered that yesterday was the feast of St. Catherine. I went back on my footsteps almost running, hoping to have time before he came down to breakfast.

***

Charlot and I were ready to serve the table when the master came down the stairs with heavy and irregular step. It was obvious that only his stubbornness had made him get out of bed, but we both knew that we should not comment. The young master Raoul stood before him and showed him his clean hands with a smile, but all he got was a cursory glance and the silent order to sit at the table.

Once they sat at the table, like every morning we put food in front of them, and I made sure to be visible when he took the napkin on his plate. Raoul had a slice of bread in his hand and he was about to lay it out at his godfather for him to butter it and to add blackberry jam when he saw the hexagonal tin box that sat on the plate and uttered a delighted cry. I had to repress a smile, for I was sure that if it were not for his childhood pleasure the Count would have not noticed the object.

I saw his eyes fell on the tin and how understanding began to filter inside that head full of dark curls. It took him a while to recognize the object, but when he did the joy was evident to anyone who knew him as I do. Olivier, like all _enfants gâtés_ , had many, many ways to be happy, but he could not always have them all and at all times. One of the simplest and oldest forms of making Olivier happy was his _grises_ , which was how he called the licorice and honey candy when he was a slip of a lad; of course, he would never admit it loudly, but he fancied them dearly since he was a toddler and I think it was the fault of his nanny whom had chosen to put a sweet on his mouth instead to endure the gaze of the master if the child was too loud.

Slowly, he turned his head toward me and his hand flashed a silent question on the object and the reason it was on his plate.

“ _Le bon larron,_ ” I explained with a brief nod.

“Again?” that question made it clear that _M. le Comte_ had not remembered his own birthday.

***

He spent the rest of the morning lying in his favorite chair, as he used to when he was not feeling well. While everyone in the house were occupied, the master devoted himself to little, restless naps, with his doublet half tied and his boots on. Raoul had to feel that something was not right, because he stationed himself at the feet of the chair and played in complete silence, peeking out adult reaction.

I must admit that we were two who kept a furtive, close watch on him.

Raoul got bored by mid-morning and left the toys on the floor to wander into the hot-house, but I managed to accomplish my work without leaving my watch. I brought him a cup of tea, because I knew that he got thirsty when he fell poorly. I placed the cup in an auxiliary table, our eyes crossed and one look was enough to me: he need to rest in bed, he was feverish. I signaled him the general direction of his bedroom with all the authority I could muster, but he only signaled me to go away, before changing his position on the chair and return to his sleep.

God bless his beautiful, but stubborn head.

Since the master of the house was unfit to keep his eagle eyes on the garden workers and harass them to his heart content, someone else had to do it. I took my shears and went to trim the hedges, these new-fangled boys never do that right.

As soon as I put a feet on the _perron,_ everybody stopped their idle chat and went about to work. It was good to know I was right and that my master’s state was the perfect excuse to them to neglect their labor. Maybe _M. le Comte_ was respected, but I was feared, by the lazy bunch, since that date when one of them was stupid enough to disregard my position as head of the house staff. Every one of them would take their chances with the master any day of the week and twice on Sunday, instead of with me, for I never brought a trouble to my master if I could solve it, and, to the date, I could solve anything from slackening behavior to theft.

As I took care of pruning the hedges, but I couldn't stop thinking about my master and the cramping should be feeling if his liver was bothering him again. The first time it had happened, the spasms had taken him by surprise and me, too. I had never seen him complain like that, not with the bullets nor with the sword-thrusts. All those nights I cradled him in my arms, cooling down his face when he gets some rest after the spasms grant him a respite. Now, they are not taking him unaware, but I had no reason to suspect that the pain was less severe.

My task was monotonous and quite fast; it gave me time to rack my brains trying to find a way to ease his suffering. Soon, I was under the salon window. I did not like the color of the leaves of these boxed trees and let the shears on the floor to examine the bush roots.

I didn't expect to hear noise from inside the manor, _M. le Comte_ was too headstrong and proud to let anyone know that he was dominated by hurt; but my ears caught a sound that had nothing to do with pain. It was a low sound, wet, steady, as the noise made by a child tasting a ripe fruit or by a kid sucking milk from its mother. The sound expressed pleasure and satisfaction. I knew that sound, that one recalled me things that happened in the dark and secret; things that no one suspected that my master could find enjoyable.

I closed my eyes and let the sound guide me through my memories. That sound reminded me of his naked body, his lips across my torso, his hands stroking my belly. My loins started to feel warm when I recalled the feel of my hands on the hair on his head while he devoted himself to use his lips in a part of my body , one that was reacting with genuine vigor at the recollection. The sound of his lips suckling was too close and clear.

“Grimaud?” my master called me, supporting his weight on the windowsill “What are you doing?”

“Soil” I groaned, averting his eyes while chocking on the shame to be caught daydreaming again, and, on the top of that, visibly aroused. “Need manure”

“Oh, I see...” he said, but I am sure he didn’t understand the first thing about it. I heard the pain in his voice, and his needs always came first to him and to me. “I won't take food by mid-day. Notify Charlot’s wife. I'm going to my bed right now,” he said and rolled that damned candy inside his mouth with that tempting sound of licking. “Would you bring me that awful concoction that you were thinking to force-feed me all day long?”

I grunted my assent to his order, but inside I was elated and thankful. _M. le Comte_ would drink his remedy and take some rest. He chose to take the weight from my back and to look after himself.

***

That night I entered his bedchamber uninvited with another mug of his remedy. _M. le Comte_ granted me free entrance some months ago, but I was still skittish about breaching the sancta sanctorum of the house, a place that even Raoul needed permission to tread in.

I had to uphold the standard for the house staff, so I visited his chamber once the young master was sent to bed and the servants were dinning. I could not take the risk to put his name in doubt just because my best sense guided me to check his state since I had not even heard him since mid-day. For me, a day without his orders and his presence was unsettling, to say the least; because I knew him and I knew he enjoyed controlling everything in Bragelonne with a draconian hand. A day without his queries about the stables and the kitchen was as strange as a day without sun.

His bedchamber was empty, that was strange. I touch the bed, it was cold. The sheets were crumpled and damp. I tried to think of the reason of his absence, but my hands began to work before I noticed them. While I was changing his bedding I heard the door cracked open. My master came into his room with an unstable gait, too foreign to his usual martial step. I made my move before even thinking it, seeing him in that state was physically painful for me. My arms went around him, and I could smell the sweat of his body before putting my head on his shoulder. He tried to resist my so evident concern, _M. le Comte_ always hated when I made a fuss over him, but he soon gave way. My master let me take care of him.

“Where?” I asked a few minutes later as he sat on his bed and I passed a wet cloth over his back, to refresh his skin.

“Raoul's room,” For us, that was a great conversation. “Tucking him up.”

I grunted and I placed a clean shirt over his head. He don it. My master laid on freshly fluffed pillows and clean pillowcases with a sigh. I rushed to cover his body with the duvet. He looked sleepy. I took the mug and handed it to him to drink. He groaned.

 _Mon_ _enfant gâté._

As he realized I was not going to budge, my master took the mug and drained it as he did with the wine in his heyday. The expression on his face when he returned it to me said that he hated the taste and me, for forcing him to drink the remedy. I leaned over and could not help but kiss his mouth. Perhaps he was annoyed, but we were alone in the room that nobody would dare to trespass, if they wanted to keep their livelihood. I was surprised that he didn't resist my kiess, he even helped me out, but the reason soon became obvious.

Yuck! That remedy really tasted bad.

“Stay,” he asked me, smiling at my reaction, and taking another candy from the hexagonal tin box to wash away the foul taste.

“Rest,” I replied, blowing the candle and tried to leave.

I should know better, I had been dealing with him for years. When an idea entered his rock-solid head, it was impossible to get it out from between his ears. Soon, I found myself between the sheets, his body leaning against mine, as if I were a bolster to make his rest more comfortable. How he does it?

He almost always had only to look to me to remind me that he was the master, and his whims had force of law. I always gave in because it was me who had given him full powers to rule over my person, I have never regretted having done so, especially when I heard him suck those candies with childlike delight.

“When I feel better”, he said, hugging me, “I’ll properly thank you for the gift of these _grises_ ”

I clasp him tightly in my arms, sure that his word was gold and when he carried out his promise, his pleasure would taste like licorice.

“Get well,” I whispered in the darkness of the room, “soon...”

 


End file.
